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Thursday, 15 June 2017

Brexit: For the Sake of Britain and Europe

“Magnanimity
in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little
minds go ill together”.

Edmund
Burke

Nostalgia and Utopia

Alphen, Netherlands. 15
June. Some time ago I wrote that there are two places a political leader should
never take a country; Nostalgia and Utopia.
Next week Brexit negotiations begin between a weakened Theresa May and
an apparently triumphalist Brussels. Are their grounds for any hope that an
equitable Brexit can be reached and relatively quickly?

Many of my regular
readers will know I harbour profound concerns about the EU, particularly the
attitude of the Brussels elite to democracy.
When I worked for the EU I too often got the sense that they saw
themselves as infallible, latter day Habsburgs and Bourbons rolled into one. The
European Commission saw itself as a kind of pre-Renaissance Vatican, the guardian
of the One True Faith, with its more Europe at all costs beliefs all too often rubber-stamped
by its very own Sacred College of Cardinals in the form of the European
Parliament.

As an Englishman steeped
in England’s long political culture I have always been uncomfortable with the
idea that people can have power over my life, even though I never had the chance
to vote for them. Had I been around in 1642 I would have most definitely been
on the side of Parliament during the English Civil War. For me the ‘divine right’ of any ‘king’ is,
and will always be, nonsense, however well-meaning. Brussels has certainly not stopped seeking ever
more power for itself in the name of ‘Europe’.

Too often I also found that
many of the Brussels elite were instinctively opposed to my country because they
saw Britain as a break on their buro-imperialist ambitions. Too often I heard
the very people meant to defend London’s position apologising for it in private.
Even today I hear some eurocrats speak of Brexit as a kind of Great Purge that
once complete will leave the road clear for Brussels to achieve the ‘broad
sunlit upland’ of Political Union. Dream on!

Why Remain?

And yet I campaigned for
Remain. After a long think there were six main reasons. First, I still believe,
to loosely quote Burke again, that enough good men and women exist in Europe to
prevent the emergence of bureaucratic tyranny.
Britain should be ‘in there’ fighting to return the EU to the people and
the nation-states in which they still believe, and with which they still identify. Second, I do not believe the European nation-state
is intrinsically conflictual and that most modern European states are quite
capable of conducting their international affairs peacefully. Third, I have always believed in the need for
a European institution, a European Community of States, and always will. Fourth,
I foresaw the political mess in Britain today, which the political battle over
Brexit has made worse. Fifth, free movement of people, and the three other fundamental
freedoms enshrined in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, were realised by winning the Cold
War, and would exist in some form EU or no. Finally, I looked at the bigger
strategic picture. Given the threats to my friends in the Baltic States and across southern Europe I was convinced
that on balance this was not the moment for Europe to yet again descend into
another bout of self-flagellation.

Brexit Today

Brexit has become far too
ideological and that must now stop. I am
sick and tired of hearing about ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ brexits from those who
clearly do not understand how the EU works.
I am tired of hearing Remoaners tell me the voice of ‘we’ the 48% who
voted to remain must be ‘respected’, when what they really mean is that the
voice of the 52% who voted to leave should now be discounted. I am sick and tired of hearing ‘hard’
Brexiteers saying Britain must have nothing more to do with the EU and that
Britain can stand alone Lowe-like, whilst too many ‘soft’ Brexiteers seem all
too happy to cast Britain into the worst of all EU worlds; subject to the
rules, whims and prejudices of Brussels, but being outside of the EU having no influence
over it. I am particularly tired of strategically-illiterate comparisons
between tiny Norway and Switzerland, and far, far bigger Britain.

The simple truth is that
Britain is part of the wider Europe, and the wider Europe desperately needs an
engaged Britain. In London politicians
of all shades of opinion and persuasion must put their foggy petty-fogging
aside and come together to establish a negotiating position that is truly in
the British national interest. On the Continent politicians must stop
threatening a leading power many sons of which gave their lives for Europe’s
freedom.

A Defining Moment

Brexit is a defining
moment for both Britain and the EU. That is why on the eve of the Brexit negotiations
I am calling for all responsible leaders on both sides of the Channel to come
together in the name of the people of Britain and across the rest of
Europe. The result of the June 2016
Brexit referendum must be respected for what it was; a democratic, legitimate
vote. If Brexit goes the way of 2005
French and Dutch referenda on the Constitutional Treaty, and the 2008 Irish referendum
on the Lisbon Treaty, and the voice of the people is again ignored by the elite
in the name (of course) of ‘the common good’, then the EU will be revealed to
be little more than a Bourbonist experiment. If British leaders do not recognise the vital
importance of the EU to Britain, and Britain’s vital role in helping to keep
Europe safe, stable and secure, then the Little
Britain about which I warned in my 2015 book will have become reality.

Like it or no, Britain
has always had a special place IN the EU. And, if both sides are to agree an equitable Brexit
deal in the interests of all then Britain must be accorded a special
relationship WITH the EU. For Britain that will demand pragmatism, supporting the
EU budget, and accepting some compromise on sovereignty. Absolute sovereignty is enjoyed by no state. As Thomas Hobbes once pointed out, only
anarchy affords such sovereignty, but it is liberty only at the price of
security.

If not, if Brexit falls
into the chasm between British nostalgists and European utopians then the
future for all looks bleak. For once, just for once, can politicians please put
the wider interests of the people before narrow sectarianism? Then, the art of
negotiation might just paint a new European masterpiece that is more Canaletto
than Jackson Pollock.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Vice-President, Atlantic Treaty Association, Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.